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o (5.1.. REENSTIEBNA. Pmmd TAG.

(Application filed Dec. 27, 1897.)

(No Model.)

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NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GUSTAF LIBERT REENSTIERNA, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO THE REENSTIERNA MANUFACTURING COMPANY, OF PROVIDENCE,

RHODE ISLAND.

TAG.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 615,637, dated December 6, 1898.

Application filed December 2'7, 1897. Serial No. 663,492. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GUSTAF LIBERT REEN- STIERNA, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Boston, in the county of Suffolk 5 and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvements in Tags, of which the following, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a specification.

This invention has for its object the production of a novel, durable,'and very efficient tag adapted to be tied or attached to packages, bundles, (to.

In carrying out my invention I have endeavored to produce a tag which can be manufactured in commercial quantity at a very low cost, while presenting salient and valuable features of the very greatest utility.

So-called string-tags have the flexible attachin g member or string connected therewith at one end, usually by looping through an eyelet or reinforced aperture in the material of which the tag is made, generally tough paper. Another form of string-tag has been devised comprising two plies of superposed paper or 2 5 pasteboard glued or otherwise cemented together, with the attaching-string looped and the short loop inserted between the plies at one end before they are cemented together, after which a staple-like fastener is driven 0 into the tag and riveted or clenched in place, straddling the branches of the string. This construction is the substantial equivalent of the eyelet or reinforced aperture form of tag, and a pull on the string tends to draw the sides 3 5 of the loop together between the plies of the tag, and thus render easy the detachment of the string from the tag.

A tag when attached to a package is frequently made to serve as a handle by which 0 the package is lifted and carried from place to place, and with either form of tag hereinbefore referred to the strain due to its weight is not in any manner distributed throughout the length of the tag, but, on the contrary, is

4 5 concentrated at one place-win, the eyelet or other device at the point of attachment of the string to the tag--resulting very frequently in rupture of the latter and complete separation of the fragment from the string.

Again, a sudden transverse pull on the tag usually tears it in two, such dismemberment rendering it quite as useless as does the rupture hereinbefore set forth. A tag of the general type specified is thus subjected most frequently to rupturing or tearing stresses in the 5 5 direction of its length substantially in the line of its connected attaching member or string and also in a transverse direction thereto. In my present invention I have borne in mind this structural weakness of existing tags and I have made the flexible attaching portion serve the additional function of a strengthening member extending from end to end of the tag in the line or direction of greatest stress and also serving to prevent dismemberment of the tag by a transverse tear, the strengthening member operating as a fiexiblebackbone for the tag.

Figure 1 represents a top or plan view of a tag embodying my present invention. Fig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional View thereof on the line 2 2, Fig. 1; and Fig. 3 is a detached plan View of a fastener which I may use to additionally secure the strengthening member to the tag. 7

Similar letters of reference are applied to like parts wherever they occur on different parts of the drawings.

I prefer to make the flexible strengthening member 0, and which also serves to attach the tag to an article, of string, tape, or other suitable material which is light, strong, and cheap and yet which may be readily tied or knotted by the fingers when applying the tag, such strengthening member being secured to and traversing the tag from end to end between its opposite faces.

For commercial reasons and on account of greater ease in manufacture I prefer to make the tag of two layers or sheets A B, of paper, pasteboard, or other suitable material, superposed one upon the other, with the strengthening member 0 between them. The sheets A and B are cemented together and to the member O by paste or other suitable cementitious substance to thereby hold the sheets together and the strengthening memberthereto as a single body. The strengthening member is thus secured to and traverses the tag from end to end substantially parallel to its I00 longitudinal edges and in the line of greater stress-that is, in the portion of the tag subjected to greatest strain when it happens to be used as a handle for the object to which it is attached. Obviously the line of greatest resistance of the tag to such stresses is along this strengthening member, and the latter is accordingly extended beyond the end of the tag to present an attaching portion by which the tagis secured to a package or other object. Pull or stress on the attaching portion is thus transmitted directly to and distributed along the tag from end to end in the direction of its greatest resistance, and complete dismemberment of the tag-body by a lateral tear is prevented, as the strengthening member limits the length of the tear.

By the construction herein shown there is no tendency of the tag to curl when subjected to longitudinal stresses, as would be the case were the strengthening member formed as a large loop disposed along and near the edges of the tag and between its plies. lVhile such a loop would prevent lateral tear, stress or pull thereupon would tend not only to curl up the tag, but also to elongate and close the loop, loosening its attachment to the tag and rendering its withdrawal easy.

The strengthening member I preferably make double, with its two parts closely adjacent and arranged substantially along the center or median line of the tag, the free ends of a two-part member facilitating attachment of the tag to a bundle, &c.

In practice I prefer to apply a fastening de vice to the tag and strengthening member at or near the end of the tag from which such member projects, so as to obviate any tendency to loosen the connection between the tag and member at such point by a lateral or upward pull on the said member, and in the drawings I have shown the fastening device as a disk D, preferably metallic, provided with a slot d, through which the free portion of the strengthening member 0 is passed. The disk is then bent over the edge of and closed against opposite faces of the tag, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2; but other forms of fastening devices may be used, if desired.

The laterally-extended body of the tag beyond the strengthening member presents a broad and smooth surface for printing or addressing, it being impossible to print properly on a ribbed or ridged surface as presented in a tag with the loop extended around its edges.

Having fully described my invention and illustrated a practical embodiment thereof, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is- 1 1. A tag having a flexible strengthening membe rsecured thereto and traversing it con tinuously from end to end between its opposite faces at or near its longitudinal center and in substantially the line of greatest stress, to prevent curling or longitudinal rupture under such stress, or dismemberment of the tag by a transverse tear, the end of said strengthening member extending beyond one end of the tag to provide an attaching portion in the line of greatest resistance of the tag, the laterally-extended body of the latter beyond said strengthening member presenting a broad and smooth surface for printing or addressing.

2. A tag having a"double strengthening tape or string secured thereto and traversing it continuously from end to end between its opposite faces at or near its longitudinal center and in substantially the line of greatest stress, to prevent curling or longitudinal rupture under such stress, or dismemberment of the tag by a transverse tear, the free ends of said tape or string extending beyond one end of the tag to provide an attaching portion in the line of greatest resistance of the tag, the laterally-extended body of the latter beyond the said tape or string presenting a broad and smooth surface for printing or addressing.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, on this 23d day of December, A. D. 1897.

GUST-AF lllll lllt'l It EENS'IIERNA.

lVitnesses:

ALBAN ANDREN, KARL A. ANDRIIN. 

